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Pro wrestling seeks to rehab its image

Posted: Dec 19th 2007 By: mikeiles

Former wrestlers speak out against sport's culture

Lex Luger calls himself "one of the biggest cheaters ever" during a stellar 20-year wrestling career.

The man once known as "The Total Package" did whatever it took to sustain his abuse of drugs and steroids while starring in the World Wrestling Entertainment and the now-defunct World Championship Wrestling.

He was far from alone.

Many wrestlers have relied on powerful drugs ? most of them requiring prescriptions ? to soothe their aching bodies while balancing the incessant travel and the pressure to maintain the buffed, gladiator-like physiques required for the modern TV and pay-for-view wrestling world.

The pressure to keep the coveted high-paying and high-profile jobs only increased as professional wrestling morphed into a billion dollar industry in the late 1980s.

"With all that added revenue and demand, the pressure just increased," said Robert Rechsteiner, the former wrestler known as Rick Steiner who is now a real estate agent and Cherokee County school board member. "Either you knew how to handle it or you didn't. And you compensated one way or the other."

That compensation often comes from pain killers, muscle relaxers, steroids, tranqulizers and alcohol. Usually, wrestlers will take a cocktail of several drugs at once.

The result has often been lethal.

"It's a culture that kills people," said Cary Ichter, an Atlanta attorney who has represented a number of wrestlers in litigation against professional wrestling organizations.

More than 100 wrestlers under the age of 50 have died from various causes over the last 10 years, according to a list compiled by the London Sun newspaper, although just a few were employed by the WWE at the time of their deaths.

Lethal drug cocktail

The causes of death in a number of cases investigated by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution were similar, with each toxicology or autopsy report revealing the presence of the powerful painkiller hydrocodone and an equally potent and potentially addictive muscle relaxer called Soma.

The powerful medications were often combined with alcohol and the anti-anxiety drug Xanax or another sedative.

Most recently, former WWE performer Brian "Crush" Adams, 44, died at his Tampa home on Aug. 13. The Hillsborough County, Fla., medical examiner's office attributed the accidental death to a mix of a strong painkiller with muscle relaxants and two different types of sedatives.

Dr. John Xerogeanes, the chief of sports medicine at Emory University and the team orthopedic doctor at Georgia Tech, called the Adams tragedy indicative of the larger problem facing the industry.

"All the drugs you see in those guys' bodies indicates there is a problem," said Xerogeanes said. "Normal people don't have one of those medications in their body, let alone three of them."

The link betwen professional wrestling and drug abuse became the focus of national attention when Chris Benoit killed his wife and 7-year-old son before taking his own life at their Fayetteville home in late June.

Medical tests showed Benoit had nearly 10 times the normal amount of testosterone in his body at the time of his death.

The federal government indicted Phil Astin III, a Carrollton doctor who authorities say supplied Benoit with a 10-month supply of testosterone every three to four weeks from May 2006 to May 2007. Astin faces seven counts of overprescribing to two patients, but authorities have said Benoit was not one of them.

The case has prompted Congress and the Georgia Athletic and Entertainment Commission to look into professional wrestling.

Manipulating the system

WWE chairman Vince McMahon and minor league wrestling organizations, Total Nonstop Action and the National Wrestling Alliance, have provided documents detailing the organizations' drug policies to the House Oversight and Reform Committee and the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection.

Interviews are still ongoing, but hearings could soon come.

In Georgia, the Athletic and Entertainment Commission, better known as the boxing commission, is considering regulating professional wrestling in the state, although the WWE is exempt.

After protests from more than 50 wrestlers and promoters at a meeting Tuesday, the commission decided to postpone consideration of the issue for 60 days.

Something must be done quickly, said Larry Shreve, a former wrestling bad guy who used the name Abdullah the Butcher.

"It's just getting out of hand," said Shreve, now an Atlanta restaurant owner. "All these guys are dying. Every time you turn the page or turn on the news, you hear of some wrestler dying.

"It used to be a few beers after a match. Then it progressed into a few beers and a couple of pills."

Luger, now living in Cherokee County as a man of strong religious conviction, spoke freely about his former ways.

He confessed to formerly being one of 700 patients ? from a number of different sports ? of a California doctor who would arrange for steroids and human growth hormones to arrive at Luger's door chilled on ice.

He declined to provide the doctor's name.

Finding a doctor to prescribe testosterone was easy if you could show your body level of the male hormone was low, he said. Wrestlers often did that by taking a six-week cycle of steroids, enough so that eventually the body would shut down its own natural production.

They'd wait two or three weeks before going to a doctor for blood tests that then showed low testosterone levels.

That provided the free pass necessary for more prescriptions.

"You don't have to be a doctor," Luger said. "You just need one to write the scripts."

Luger, whose real name is Lawrence Pfohl, also was fond of an oil-based testosterone cream that can be rubbed into the body.

"It was like the fountain of youth," he said.

Regular drug testing, which the WWE has cited as proof of its hard line against drug and steroid use following the Benoit tragedy, was hardly a deterrent.

Luger cited numerous times he wasn't asked to strip down to his knees ? as he was supposedly required ? when giving a urine sample. It was then easy to sneak in other samples in place of his own. Or the other times he'd soak his Visine-covered fingers into the sample knowing the chemicals in the eye drops would mask the drugs in his system.

And when all else failed, the 6-foot-6, 270-pounder would intimidate lab techs to witness the wrestlers provide a urine sample.

"Just imagine a guy my size giving 'em a glare and saying [something intimidating],' " Luger said. "I was one of the biggest cheaters ever."

Changed landscape

However, WWE officials and current performers insist transgressions like his would be discovered in today's more stringent testing environment.

They point to the Wellness Program, the organization initiated in February 2006 that includes tight rules governing random drug testing and monitoring the cardiac health of its athletes.

But despite the renewed interest, some observers don't hold out hope that drug use will be curtailed.

"It's kind of like baseball," said Greg Oliver, a Canadian freelance writer who has covered professional wrestling for more than 20 years. "It'll probably change the way we look at these guys. But will it really change anything?

"Probably not."

Tags: WWE, WCW, Rick Steiner, TNA, NWA, Abdullah the Butcher